A Day in a Life

On 30th April 1975, after an indulging indiscreetly in chhole bhature at Bhimsain’s Bengali Sweet House, I came down with a particularly bad bout of hepatitis A. I spent the month of May suffering exhaustion and abominable abdominal pain, and condemned to the most miserable diet, especially boiled potatoes, for which I still have a loathing. The only redeeming features was that I could eat mangoes and drink unlimited volumes of nimbu-pani and home-crushed cane juice (what kitchen equipment Amma used to extract it I have forgotten, but surely it was some magical art she learnt in her childhood, eating charuku grown in her family fields on the banks of the Tungabhadra). I had read through all the books in my shelf and my level of boredom must have reached such heights that I found myself scanning the schedules of the local trains and wondering what it would be like to travel to Baghpat or Hapur.

The invitation from NVK Murthy to spend a month with his family in Bombay was a welcome break. I was extremely fond of Kittu mama and his family; Krishna atta was a darling, and we were very close to his daughters, particularly Janu and Anu, who would come after school and spend the afternoon and evenings more than a couple of times a week before they had moved to Bombay. The holiday in their Hyderabad Estate apartment on Napean Sea Road was to be one of my most enjoyable childhood vacations, and an important one as I completed my twelfth year.

My holiday was cut short by the declaration of the Emergency, when my mother thought the situation in the country was likely to go out of hand, particularly with threats of railway strikes. Poor Kittu mama had to use all his charm and connections to get me a train ticket urgently. He managed to arrange this, and found a colleague who was travelling to Delhi on the 26th of June whom I could accompany.

Being away in Bombay in June 1975, I perhaps missed seeing my father going through the prelude to one of the most stressful periods of his professional life. What he went through is recounted by Bishan Tandon in his PMO Diary-I, from which the following extract is taken:

As I was leaving for office, Sharada [H Y Sharada Prasad] phoned to say, “You must have heard, it is all over. We will talk when you come to office.”  He sounded very dejected.

On reaching office I went straight to Sharada’s room.  He told me in detail whatever he knew.  Last night the PM had summoned him and Prof. Dhar to her house at 10pm. Barooah and Ray were already there. When Prof. Dhar and Sharada reached there, the PM told them, “I have decided to declare an Emergency.  The President has agreed. I will inform the Cabinet tomorrow.” Saying this, she handed over the draft of the Emergency proclamation to Prof. Dhar.  He and Sharada were stunned. They had been summoned only in order to be informed and for their advice on the propaganda to follow. She also told them to prepare a draft of her address to the nation.  They were at the PM’s house till about 1am. The cabinet was to meet at 6am.

All those ministers who were in Delhi attended the cabinet meeting.   The PM told them what she had decided to do but not one of them protested, not even faintly.  Only Swaran Singh raised some administrative issues.  The arrests were not discussed at all.  One of the ministers said that he had heard about the arrests but the matter was swept aside. Even Prof. Dhar had no idea about these arrests. Sharada said that all the main leaders of the opposition, including JP, Morarji, Charan Singh have been arrested.

Sharada also told me that Sanjay was in full control of the PM’s house.  After the cabinet meeting he [Sanjay] called Gujral to one side and scolded him for the poor propaganda effort. He told him to send every news bulletin to the PM’s house henceforth: Gujral told him that from the functional point of view, some official should be deputed for this. He could be stationed at the AIR, where he would be shown all the bulletins.  He suggested Sharada’s name for this but Sanjay put Behl on the job.

VR [V Ramachandran] also joined us. After hearing Sharada he said that Indira too would have a `guided’ democracy.  Sharada said yes in a very low tone. 

He was very tired.  Since June 12 he has had to work the hardest in the PM’s secretariat because the PM’s entire strategy is based on propaganda.  But more than physical tiredness, he was in mental agony.  I have never seen him like this.  He must surely have wondered if this was what he had gone to jail for in 1942. He is a journalist. After independence this is the first time that pre-censorship has been imposed.